Industry

Free Basics is a violation of net neutrality, says Save the Internet. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg vehemently disagreed with these claims, saying that "If we accept that everyone deserves access to the internet, then we must surely support free basic internet services". (more...)

Microsoft's goal is to get Windows 10 on 1 billion devices by 2018. Share your views on Windows 10 and the device you are running it on. Since Black Friday, US retail PC share* for Windows 10 grew 16 points to 62% compared to the prior four weeks. (more...)

According to Facebook , it has been able to offer Free Basics services to a billion people across Asia, Africa and Latin America. "The platform creator then partners with service provider(s) to provide free Internet access to participating content providers, for the subscribers of those service providers", which is similar to Free Basics. (more...)

There has been no comment from Etisalat Egypt on the matter. In a joint statement issued on Tuesday, around 50 faculty members from IITs (Bombay, Delhi, Kharagpur, Madras, Patna) and IISc Bengaluru have denounced the proposal, dubbing it a "lethal combination that will lead to total lack of freedom on how Indians can use the internet". (more...)

Therefore, one way is to ignore these 14.34 lakh responses, which will be unfair since these many people have tried to involve themselves in one way, so TRAI made a decision to extend the deadline for the comments to give them another chance to answer to the specific questions on "differential pricing", he added. (more...)

Trai Chairman R S Sharma said that the authority has got about 18.27 lakh responses till now out of which 8.9 lakh through phone and 5.44 lakh through Facebook mail supporting Free Basics but the comments did not answer the questions asked by the regulator. (more...)

According to The Times of India , the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India will reconsider the service after it is clarified "whether a telecom operator should be allowed to have differential pricing for different kinds of content", a chief concern for proponents of a neutral internet. (more...)

The move comes amid growing debate over whether the service, which critics say would create a "walled garden" prioritizing some websites over others, violates the principles of net neutrality. The program was recently highlighted at an entrepreneurship fair in Cairo . He already launched the service in partnership with 35 mobile operators in more than 30 countries around the world. (more...)

The uniquely designed flagship Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge and other flagship devices such as Galaxy S6, S6 Edge+ and Galaxy Note 5 are expected to receive Marshmallow 6.0.1 update soon. The 5.7-inch Galaxy Note 4 outsold the 5.5-inch iPhone 6s Plus, which doesn't feature in the top 10 at all. A lot of people are trying to look forward to the future of the Android platform due to the massive security exploits that have been unveiled as of late and the Samsung Galaxy S7 will improve on this aspect ... (more...)

CES 2016 should be all about cars and home appliances, but it should also be about virtual reality devices. "There are always a couple of winners at CES, and sometimes there are the sleepers that turn out to be the cool thing", said Gartner analyst Brian Blau. (more...)

Critics argue that it will create a tiered system of information, where the wealthy can pay for full access to the internet as a whole, while the poor will be restricted to the sites that Free Basics allows. A debate on net neutrality stirred across the country after Bharti Airtel Ltd, the country's biggest mobile-phone operator, chose to charge separately for Internet-based calls but withdrew it later after people protested. (more...)

In a letter drafted to the government watchdog Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, nine heads of startups including Paytm and Zomato urged the TRAI to ensure that Internet access was allowed but without differential pricing. Only 252 million of India's 1.3 billion people have Internet access, making it a growth market for firms including Google and Facebook . "How supporting Free Basics help me (TRAI) in answering the questions which we had asked for 'whether differential pricing should be ... (more...)

The self-regulatory body for the advertising industry has been receiving a series of complaints against Facebook's Free Basic ad campaigns that talks about providing free access to internet services to a billion people around the world. It has cited examples of different termination fee charged for SMS of different kinds, Doordarshan channels shown free to viewers and subsidy provided under universal service obligation rules for increasing telecom services access in rural area. (more...)

While Free Basics toes the line with net neutrality, it is hard to argue the benefits of bringing more people to the modern age, making the issue a worthwhile discussion for each nation in the program. The coalition has said that Facebook is misleading users and cautioned that the free service could be replete with advertising if and when it's implemented. (more...)

According to the FAQ page from the leaked memo, even AT&T employees won't be able to purchase a subsidized phone with a two-year contract after January 8th. However, it remains unclear whether it would also apply to tablets and wearables. That discount on a phone you used to get for being locked into AT&T for two years? Are you planning to renew your contract this January with AT&T? It does not apply "to business customers under a qualified wireless service agreement", the carrier said ... (more...)

This is true even for services that aren't part of the program, according to YouTube, who told The Wall Street Journal that its videos were being degraded. T-Mobile claims what it is doing ins optimizing the video for mobile devices and that streaming is as fast or faster than it would be otherwise. The fight over the wording isn't just a PR battle. (more...)

Uploading the key to Microsoft's own cloud and associating it with the users' Microsoft account may not be a ideal solution, but neither are the other options, like mailing a separate paper copy or attempting to repeatedly warn the user to actually pay attention during the setup process. (more...)

These encryption keys could put them at a risk as they can be accessed by hackers, Microsoft's own employees gone rogue and the law enforcement officials. However by the same logic, sharing your encryption keys with anybody, much less, Microsoft is not recommended. This is what most companies use, and it seems to work well. (more...)

But the consensus of opinion is that Samsung will not improve the resolution of the Galaxy S7, and will instead stick with the Quad HD resolution that was delivered last time out. While most of it comes in the form of rumors with respect to the potential features, specs and pricing of the next Samsung Galaxy flagship, there is a new report that finally confirms the release of this phone. (more...)

Not much, because the change is largely aimed at the developers as by using OpenJDK , Google aims to simplify the code and introduce a common codebase for its Java API libraries, as opposed to multiple codebases. At the heart of the issue is Google's usage of Java in Android Operating System (OS) without asking, as if it's open-source and community licensed. While Google initially won at the trial level under the theory that APIs can not be copyrighted, a Federal Circuit court reversed the ... (more...)